Suspicions: (Twenty) One
by starlightisms
Summary: A call rings a bell, and Conan tries to count the months flowing by. Instead, he finds a lie. [ Oneshot for Poirot Cafe's Suspicions contest. ]


**. : SUSPICIONS: (TWENTY) ONE : .  
**_... "Today was February eighth." ..._

_a detective conan au fanfiction  
feat. the Comic-Book Time trop_

* * *

Oneshot

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.

* * *

As a rule, Conan wasn't easily frazzled.

After getting shrunk down ten years, hardly anything could knock him off balance anymore. Even the endless string of gruesome murders was becoming too regular an occurrence for him to be truly disturbed by it.

So what possessed him to dig through a plain old cardboard box with such ferocity and feverish desperation in his eyes?

His glasses had been discarded, thrown carelessly to the side; his arms, nicked here and there by paper cuts, were hidden in the box up to his elbows; his pajamas, rumpled and ruffled, were unusually unkept for the person everyone knew him to be, even if it was in the middle of the night. Shuffling paper and heavy breaths disturbed the quiet of the room as trembling hands slowly selected one sheet of glossy paper at a time, deliberate and careful. Hesitant and fearful.

It began with Shinichi's parents checking up on their son like they always did. Nothing special, just a simple exchange of words every month to make sure he was still in one piece and breathing, because that fateful day in Tropical Land could've been so much worse and they wouldn't have known for who knows how long...!

They didn't like to think about it, but at least, Conan had thought as he opened his ringing phone, they were trying a little harder to keep in contact. To be better parents.

"_Shin-chan! How are you doing?" _came his mom's happy voice before he could even open his mouth. "_You haven't been getting into any more trouble, have you?"_

"Hello to you, too," Conan replied drily, letting his gaze drift out one of the windows in Agasa's house. He leaned back into his chair. "I'm fine; everything's going normally for now." Which was to say, aside from solving random cases as usual, there wasn't really any trouble to speak of. "What about you guys?"

"_Well, a couple days ago, someone found out where we were staying, so Yuu-chan and I had to move."_ Her pout was practically audible through her tone. "_You didn't have anything to do with it, did you?"_

"Of course not," Conan replied with a straight face. It definitely wasn't him who decided to take pity on the poor publishers and send them a notice with the address. Definitely not.

"_Uh-huh."_ His mom's sarcasm levels momentarily shot off of the charts. "_And I really liked that place, too! Oh, but we did get to meet someone interesting while we were moving, so that was nice. You'll never guess who, Shin-chan~!"_

"Who?" he asked indulgently, not really paying any attention.

"_A very nice young man, he said that his name's Eisuke and that he knows you're Shin-chan!"_

Attention snapped back to the phone at the unexpected name. "Eisuke?" Conan repeated, brows furrowing. He… Mizunashi Rena's brother. Clumsy. Glasses. _And I'm telling you no!_

Right, _that_ Eisuke. Hondou.

"_You do know him, right?"_ Yukiko continued - the slightest touch of worry edged her tone.

"Yeah, I know him," Conan confirmed flatly. "He's… His sister is helping take down the men in black."

"_Oh, good, that's what he told us. Yuu-chan believed him right off the bat, but I wasn't too sure. And how did this harmless guy find you out, anyway?"_ Yukiko giggled. "_Shin-chan, you sound a little bitter, did something happen?"_

"No," he responded, trying not to sound too petulant. "A-anyway, did he say anything else?"

"_Mm, no, not really."_ She was still stifling giggles - that couldn't mean anything good for the next time. It also meant that she knew more than she was letting on. "_Your father kept yabbering on with him, I think the CIA or something was brought up a couple times, but that's pretty much all of it. He just asked us to say hi to you."_ Pause. "_Oh, and there was also something about Ran-chan."_ Laughter resounded from the other side of the call, to Conan's chagrin. Yeah, she definitely knew too much.

"...I'm hanging up."

"_Shiiin-chaaan, don't be like that-"_

"Talk to you next time." Beep.

Dropping the phone onto the nearby table and giving it the most disdainful look he could muster, Conan folded his arms behind his head and sank sulkily into the cushions. His phone buzzed a couple times, but he ignored it.

"She means well, you know," Agasa threw in from across the room from where he was tinkering with Conan's watch.

"I know. I'm not _that_ annoyed." Conan's eyes flitted back over to his phone, which had stopped buzzing. A glance to the screen revealed one missed call and one new text, which meant that Yukiko knew he wasn't that mad at her, too. Otherwise, he'd have many more messages to deal with. Most of their monthly updates ended up like this, actually, especially if his mom found some sort of new teasing material.

Sighing, Conan picked his phone back up and pocketed it. He hadn't heard from Eisuke in a while, actually… Several months, if memory served, had passed since he left for America. Thinking back… Yeah - for the majority of the year, at the very least. So it was good to hear that he was doing well and probably pursuing his interest in the CIA, or something -

\- wait.

It had barely been about a year since he'd shrunk. If the last he'd seen of Eisuke was that long ago…

Quite suddenly, Conan realized it was far too difficult to remember the first time he met the other student. But he didn't _have_ trouble remembering things like that - and he'd never _had_ that trouble, either. And he could remember the details of the cases that involved Eisuke perfectly fine, just not - _when_ it happened.

New Years. That's right, there was a case at New Years. And then one just after the Setsubun.

Except - no, that couldn't be right. Conan furrowed his brows. Today was February seventh, he knew - Setsubun had just come and gone. He must've remembered it wrong. It couldn't be on Setsubun.

Setsubun beans. It _had_ to have been on Setsubun, that wasn't right, the murder trick involved the holiday itself.

Then how in the world - ?

"Shinichi?"

Conan jerked his head up at the call, having automatically fallen into a thinking pose.

Agasa looked at him oddly, but offered him the newly-repaired tranquilizer watch. "I finished fixing the lid, replacing the rechargeable battery, and charging it - you shouldn't have any more problems with the battery being so worn out."

"Thanks, hakase," Conan replied automatically, taking the watch in hand and clipping it back onto his wrist without much thought. Having a fresh, fully recharged battery would be useful for the upcoming camping trip that the Detective Boys had coerced Agasa into.

Still, a cold trickle eased down his spine as he left the inventor and headed back to the Detective Agency. Apprehension coiled tightly, a thick and heavy heavy presence in the pit of his stomach. His mind spun - and each time it slowed back to a stop, numb and unfeeling, he thought back to the conflicting dates and it began to spin again.

If a case with Eisuke occurred around New Years, and then another at Setsubun, then why did he distinctly remember Eisuke at the hospital afterwards, waking up the comatose Kir - during _December?_

* * *

Sleeping on it did nothing.

Conan went to school the next day like normal, because there was nothing else that he could do.

The Detective Boys worried over him briefly, but then decided that he'd gotten himself into a sad funk again (it happened every so often, and if it didn't involve a case, then they weren't interested) and waited for him to work out of it on his own, preferring to preoccupy themselves with games. Even little Ayumi-chan was eventually pulled away to play with the others. Their carefree attitude had come to be endearing, and Conan couldn't help but crack a smile at them before returning to his endless musings.

Haibara had spared him a bemused glance, but he reassured her that he was fine with a quiet murmur. Once that was established, she simply nodded and turned her attention elsewhere.

Class proceeded and ended without so much as a peep of abnormality. Summoning enough strength to smile and wave goodbye to his other classmates, Conan trudged on home with the Detective Boys bouncing and chattering at his side. On the way back, however, little discrepancies kept snagging his attention, and they ended up only adding to his confusion.

In the window of an electronics store, with screens visible all over the place, Conan took idle notice of what the news channel of the televisions and tablets was saying. It was some discussion about a recent murder that Sleeping Kogorou had solved, and the news anchors mentioned the elimination of the statute of limitations for murders and extended statutes for other crimes - reasonable, of course. Prior, the statute had been changed from fifteen to twenty-five years. Now, it was gone altogether, and had been gone for…

No, that didn't add up. The complete removal of the statute had occurred several years ago, so Conan _shouldn't_ remember very clearly that in his first exploration-gone-wrong with the Detective Boys, a mother locked away her unwilling son in the basement to let him escape murder charges via the fifteen-years statute.

_Shouldn't_ being the key word, because he still _did._

Just to make sure he wasn't making it up somehow, he'd asked the other Detective Boys if they remembered that particular misadventure. Since it happened before Haibara joined the group, she didn't, but the other three kids nodded happily, quickly turning amongst themselves to discuss the past and more recent endeavors they'd had.

But the statute had been removed for far longer than a year, and Shinichi had turned into Conan only this year - right? So something was off. He hoped it wasn't him.

Conan told the others to go on ahead, and after they extracted a promise from him about meeting up at Agasa's right afterward instead of going straight home like a boring person, he wandered into the electronics store.

At first, nothing really stood out - but when he stared at some still-boxed tablets, marked down for really cheap prices, he noticed from the labels that those particular tablets were at least a year and a half out of date. What kind of manager still had these old models, and why would they ever keep them around? Whoever it was, the manager was either forgetful and disorganized, or too lazy to clear out the shelves, or desperate to sell off the older items. Still, the newer ones sold far better, so that would've been a smarter choice…

As he picked up one of the boxes, something else clicked into place. Conan stared at the pictured tablet on the front of the box for several moments, trying to process his thoughts. This particular brand and type - Takagi-keiji and Hattori had used it in revealing a murder trick involving an elevator and four of those. A video.

That was… A month or so ago, right? After that, there'd been a troublesome investigation in the vampire mansion…

No. No, the Blush Mermaid heist was definitely more than a month ago, with the Green Emperor for the heist that happened a couple weeks after that, several weeks ago. But the Blush Mermaid heist had come after that murder case.

Conan felt like he was trying to put together two puzzle pieces that didn't match.

And when that kind of thing happened… You set one of those pieces down and looked for another one to try.

Or you set both pieces down and left the puzzle for a while, and came back to it after clearing your head.

Conan put the box back where he found it and walked out of the store in a heavy daze, his feet moving on their own as he slowly continued on his way.

* * *

Ran was out shopping with Sonoko, Kogorou told Conan when he dropped by the Agency to let them know where he was going to be. The older detective was listening to horse races and reading the paper, as usual. Conan just nodded and left before he remembered to administer one of his daily 'love taps'.

Taking his skateboard to move faster, Conan made his way to Agasa's house. Once there, he was greeted with the impatient callings of the other Detective Boys, who were already working together on the little project that had been assigned today but wasn't due until the end of next week. Something about constructing a three-dimensional model of a park. Conan surmised that Ayumi and Mitsuhiko had convinced an unwilling Genta and neutral Haibara to help, since the latter two weren't quite as enthusiastic. Actually, Genta seemed to be sulking, but grudgingly helping out. Amusement quirked Conan's lips as he greeted them, dropping into the only empty seat left to pore over the work that the others had gotten done so far, mentally pushing away his current mystery.

He wasn't sure he needed to correct much - Haibara was more than enough to stop them from making stupid mistakes, and they'd long since learned that asking Agasa for assurance was perfectly fine - but went over what they were planning out with a critical eye, adding on a couple of details.

The kids had improved, Conan noted with a touch of pride. All of his herding and exasperated guiding in the past year seemed to have paid off; more thought was being put into the answers than he'd normally expect from someone of their age.

"I think you guys covered all the bases," Conan said, tapping the back end of his pencil on the paper. He offered them a rewarding smile. "We could start building it now, or do you want to save that for another day?"

"Let's do it now!" Ayumi answered excitedly. Mitsuhiko agreed - better to get things done early, after all. More time to fix possible errors.

"Can we take a break first?" Genta cut in, rubbing his stomach. "I'm hungry, and Subaru-san dropped by some curry earlier!"

"Is food the only thing you think about, Genta-kun?" Mitsuhiko scolded good-naturedly. His own stomach growled, however, betraying his own hunger.

Everyone blinked at the sound, and then broke into a brief spat of laughter.

"I'll ask the hakase to warm up the food," Haibara volunteered, rolling her eyes at their antics. She stood up and headed out of the room, tossing over her shoulder as she did so, "You all can get the supplies in the meantime."

"Sounds good to me," Conan agreed, quashing the urge to roll his eyes back at her. "Anyway, I'm going to clear the table. You guys know where the supplies are - Genta, could you get some boxes? Ayumi, you bring over the construction paper and markers - Mitsuhiko, go with her and get some of the glue, tape, and scissors, too. Is that alright?"

"Yes!" the kids chorused, quickly scrambling off to do their assigned jobs.

Meanwhile, Conan did as he said he would, moving all of the planning papers off of the work space into neat piles under the table, and moving the chairs back a bit.

As he pushed a chair to the side, however, one of the wooden legs bumped into a digital clock that had been pushed off of the table (probably by the kids, for more writing space) and forgotten. Conan crouched and picked it up, gazing at the blinking red digits. **h0:20** turned into **20:20** while he was looking at it, so he turned it over in his hands. Yeah, **05:04** sounded like a far saner time than **h0:20**.

Standing up, Conan looked around and spotted a cabinet he could put the clock on, and moved to set it there. As he put it down, however, the memory of a case flitted across the forefront of his mind.

Months upon months ago, he remembered the case in which Genta had a bout of extreme misfortune, and after everything cleared up, Haibara mentioned to him that Gin was left-handed…

Apocalypse t-shirts. In a mirror, SOS became 202, Conan recalled. Poor Genta had been so stressed out at the prospect of being targeted, and it was very fortunate that he bounced back so easily.

Conan suddenly stilled.

Those apocalypse t-shirts were for the apocalypse that supposedly happened in 2000 - _over fifteen years ago._

Nobody would sell them in the past year, that didn't make any sense. 2001, sure, 2005 was pushing it, but those outdated clothes should have definitely stopped selling by 2010.

Nothing was matching up.

Suppressing a shiver, Conan went back to the table to meet the Detective Boys, all of who had returned by then. He tried to push the strange and inexplicable discoveries out of his mind and focus on building the model park, but there was only so much that cutting out pieces of paper could to do distract him.

The ceaseless voices of his classmates blended together in a soothing background as he attempted to ponder, but did nothing to help him figure it out.

Hours passed in peace, Conan strangely quiet throughout the rest of the meeting. There was a small respite for eating curry, careful or to get any of the food stained on the crafting project, but otherwise all of their time was devoted to the model park. They managed to lay down the base and marked off the major landmarks of the park, after which Genta insisted that it was good enough for a full day's work.

After spending half an hour or so cleaning up the mess that they'd made in the room, with the box containing their model tucked safely away in a cabinet under Haibara's watchful eye, they all departed and went their separate ways. Conan left last, taking his time in tying his shoes and grabbing his skateboard.

Unexpectedly, a hand grabbed onto his sleeve. Refusing the urge to flinch at the startling contact, Conan twisted around to see Haibara gazing at him piercingly.

"What is it?" Conan heard himself say. A thought occurred to him, and he snapped a back to his senses a little. "Is one of _them_ nearby?" he inquired, softer.

She shook his head. Blue-green eyes narrowed at him. "You were acting strange today, Kudou-kun. Did you even notice Yoshida-san calling your name before I answered her question for you?"

… No, he didn't. When had that happened? "I just have something on my mind," Conan said instead, somewhat evading the question.

"It doesn't seem to be a normal case," Haibara commented idly. "If it's a case at all, anyway."

"It doesn't matter, that's what it is." Even though he fought to make sure his voice didn't quite waver, the words rung out hollowly, empty, into the air. Haibara's silent response indicated that she didn't buy it.

A moment of wordless tension passed before she shrugged. "If you say so," she said."But don't dig yourself too deep a hole."

"I'm always careful," he responded.

She let go of his sleeve, and he slipped out the door quickly, convinced that if he stayed any longer, she'd read him and his actions like an open book.

* * *

Time. Time had something to do with it, for sure.

Conan lay half-curled on his bed, for all appearances a kid asleep for school the next day. However, his eyes were open and staring into the dark room's endless shadows, full-heartedly ignoring the thunderous snoring in the background.

Time, he thought.

Everything that he had noticed had something to do with the date.

What he knew - or thought he knew - and what he _remembered_ didn't connect properly, like they should. One had to be wrong, but he was sure that both had to be right.

Which side of the equation was he interpreting wrong?

No - that wasn't the way to think it. If two puzzle pieces don't fit, you switched one of them out.

Say he was remembering the dates of the specific cases wrong. That… just flat-out didn't work. Some of the cases had very distinct dates, holidays and the like, that were unmistakable. And his mind wasn't just making it up either, because other people remembered those cases as well.

If that wasn't the part that was wrong, then -

But he _knew_ it had only been a year… right? Ran - Ran was still in the same year of high school, Conan still in the same first grade class as he had been when he started out, he'd _know_ if the first-year anniversary of his shrinking had passed, the night of January nineteenth shouldn't have slipped past his notice at all -

_Today was February eighth._

And quite suddenly, Conan realized he _didn't_ know. He had _thought._

Alarm seeped deep into his bones, setting them in iron and paralyzing him on the spot as his eyes grew ever wider.

That couldn't be possible.

A shudder quaked through his body as he forced himself to sit up, reaching to the side for his phone. His fingers wrapped around the cool plastic and he brought it closer to him, flicking up the lid and staring at its brightly, ignorantly glowing rectangular screen.

**February 8th, 2015**, the screen read. **11:47 PM.**

Conan stared at the screen for a long while, and then dropped it onto the floor, moving to stand up unsteadily. Once his blanket slid off and pooled around his feet, he strode slowly out of the room, an unbalanced gait in his steps.

It was an endless war between his child-sized body demanding sleep and his mind demanding answers, and Conan often found himself using the wall to balance himself as his head spun.

Still, he trudged on.

( He'd always been more of a detective than a child. )

Stumbling down the stairs, Conan dragged himself to the Detective Agency's main office area and let himself in, shutting the door behind him without a sound but for the handle clicking back into place.

"She keeps them here," he said to himself, shaking off the last lingering feeling of the childish want for sleep. Fine-tuning his focus, honing in on the one piece of evidence that he hoped would clear up his confusion.

Driven by a sudden _need _to know, to get to the bottom of this madness, Conan snapped into full wakefulness and made his way over to the bookshelves along the side of the wall. Running a hand over the spines of the books, he scanned them for what he hoped to see - but they weren't there.

Turning away, he glanced through the room, his eyes eventually falling on and finding a stack of cardboard boxes stacked in a corner. Something that Ran had planned to move into a better storage place, but had never really gotten around to it, either.

Pulling at the topmost box, he carefully eased it off of the stack and pushed it to the side. He did the same to the next, and the next, until he was left with the one box on the bottom of it all.

Lifting up the cover and setting it aside, Conan turned on his watch's flashlight and scanned through the interior of the cardboard box. Half-scattered files, once neat but messed up in the moving, looked promising - but the flashlight glared off of his glasses, so in a single move and without a second thought, Conan tore both his physical and mental masks off and cast them aside.

Putting the watch between his teeth, Conan dug feverishly through the glossy sheets and looked at them two at a time, stuffing them back into a corner of the box if they weren't what he was looking for or carefully setting it on the floor if it was.

An hour later, he'd shifted through all of the photos. After a quick skimming to make sure he hadn't missed any of the vital ones that he'd been searching for, Conan fell into a cross-legged position and stared at the photos splayed out in a neat half-arc in front of him.

Twenty different New Years celebrations looked back at him.

In the lower left-hand corner of every photo, Ran's handwriting pronounced the date that each photo had been taken.

1994, said one. 1995. 1996. And so on and so forth, until the most recent 2015.

Not one year.

_Twenty _one years.

Conan put his head in his hands, and knew no more.

* * *

Elsewhere, a tired writer leans back into her chair, looks at the ceiling, and relishes in the accomplishment of completion.


End file.
